21.

Alex

B eatrice notices the change as soon as I walk through the doors. She sets down the bowl she's stirring. Maybe she's baking cookies. She rushes over to me and places her hands on my shoulders. It's the most "momish" I've ever seen her look.

"What happened at work today?"

"Nothing."

A lie, but she sees right through it.

"Seriously. What happened?"

"I..." I can't bring myself to say it. No matter how much I want to be honest with Beatrice, I can't figure out a normal, non-weird way to say, "I slept with your cousin. Oh, and I loved it."

Fortunately for me, she realizes what I'm getting at immediately.

"No way!"

"What?" I blink and hope I look innocent.

"You slept with him."

Okay, mission failed.

"I didn't mean to."

"How was it?" She takes my hands and leads me to the couch, where we sit side-by-side. "Was it amazing?"

"This is your cousin. It's kind of weird to talk about it."

"You deserve this," she says, ignoring my comment. "You've never dated anyone nice."

"What? Excuse me! I have definitely dated nice people."

"Really? Name one. In the history of our time together, at no point have you dated someone I would label as ‘good for you.'"

I hate that she's right.

I hate that she knows me this well.

Perhaps most of all, I hate that she seems to understand exactly how my brain works.

"Karrie was nice," I say.

"The girl you dated last year? The one who said you stole her dog?"

"Okay, that was a little weird." We'd gone on four dates before Karrie claimed I was stalking her and also, she thought I took her dog. When I pointed out that her dog had probably run away because she whined so much, that didn't go over very well. We didn't speak again after that. "But what about Jesse?"

"The dude with the convertible?"

"What's wrong with convertibles?" I feel like I'm learning a lot about Beatrice right now and the way she views the world.

"Nothing," she says.

"It doesn't sound like nothing."

"Well, convertibles on their own aren't bad, but Jesse would never stop talking about his."

"He was just proud of it."

She rolls her eyes. "He referred to his car as a woman on eight different occasions, Alex. This is weird because you went on exactly four dates. That's a two-mentions per-date average, which is worse because that's just during the pre-date time when he was picking you up."

"Okay, maybe my dating history has been sketchy."

"That's putting it lightly."

"Damn! Point taken." I don't want the point to be taken, but it is.

"Look, all I want to know is if he was good to you."

"Yes."

"And I want to know if you're going to be doing this again."

"With Ryan? I don't think it's a good idea, but yes, I want to do it again."

She leans forward and uses the most sarcastic tone I've ever heard in my life.

"You don't think that sleeping with a billionaire boss is a good idea? Why on Earth not?" Beatrice winks, gets up, and heads back to our little galley kitchen. I let her go, and I allow myself to sit on the couch for just a moment before I get up and go join her.

"What are we making today?" I ask, changing the subject. She passes a bowl toward me.

"Anything we want, Alex. The sky's the limit for us today."

And I know that somehow, she's right.